Richard Strauss’s 6 Lieder, Op. 56 is an odd assortment of songs. The first three items, settings of poems by Goethe, Henckell and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (a Swiss poet), were composed in 1903, while the last three items date from 1906 and feature all of them texts by Heinrich Heine. All but the first song are dedicated to Strauss’s mother, and this makes the presence of the fifth song in this collection. Frühlingsfeier (Rite of Spring) even more curious in comparison with the other items in the group. The description of the Adonia, an annual fertility rite celebrated by Greek women before the Christian era, hardly sounds like the theme for a voice/piano song (or something you would dedicate to your mother). As it was, these festivals involved mock funerals for Adonis, Aphrodites’s handsome mortal lover killed by a wild boar when he was hunting. Women would sow seeds of lettuce and fennel in potsherds on their rooftops and then wail in processions calling his name “Adonis, Adonis!” through the streets of Athens and other cities. This description sounds a bit outlandish – I guess almost everyone would imagine something a little bit wilder on hearing “fertility ritual” – and so is Strauss’s song.
To be honest, Frühlingsfeier could be described as kitsch. It goes against everything we imagine in a German Lied. The vocal line is not central in tessitura and intimate in atmosphere, but frankly heroic in an operatic manner, and the piano part is extremely busy and grandiloquent. It simply doesn’t work in the context of a Liederabend. If the soprano has the voice for it, she will sound too loud in a way that overpowers the piano, which here reminds us that it is a percussion instrument; if the singer doesn’t have the voice for it, it’ll be sheer screaming. It is no coincidence that between 1903 and 1906, Strauss composed his first successful opera, Salome, and what we hear here has some similarity with the soprano solos in the scene in which she tries to seduce Jochanaan. Actually, the similarity has to do with the multicoloured accompaniment and the kind of vocal writing. Both in terms of harmony and invention, Salome is more daring than Frühlingsfeier, which comes across rather as conventional and, therefore, somewhat kitsch. And yet, the impression of exaggeration, of lack of true substance fits somehow Heine’s poem, which describes the mock funeral rather than Adonis’s death itself. In any case, although Strauss only wrote a version for voice and orchestra 27 years later, anyone who hears it will agree that it is far preferable. The big orchestra wraps the exposed writing for the soprano and fills the texture in a way the piano cannot do. Some may claim that it sounds rather as an operatic aria in the orchestral version, but who cares? Regardless of what Strauss might have thought when he composed it, it never was a Lied, neither in the essence of the text nor in the nature of the music. Some critics consider it a weak link in Strauss’s opus, and I would only agree if you regard it as a Lied. Then, yes, it’s a failed one. But when you embrace its peculiarity, then it is indeed original in its flashiness.
Let’s read Heinrich Heine’s poem first: Das ist des Frühlings traurige Lust!/ Die blühenden Mädchen, die wilde Schar,/ Sie stürmen dahin mit flatterndem Haar/ Und Jammergeheul und entblößter Brust: /‘Adonis! Adonis!’// Es sinkt die Nacht bei Fackelschein/Sie suchen hin und her im Wald,/ Der angstverwirret widerhallt/Vom Weinen und Lachen und Schluchzen und Schreien:/‘Adonis! Adonis!’// Das wunderschöne Jünglingsbild,/ Es liegt am Boden blaß und tot,/Das Blut färbt alle Blumen rot,/Und Klagelaut die Luft erfüllt,/‘Adonis! Adonis!’ (“This is the mournful delight of spring/ The young women in bloom, the wild throng/ They rush ahead with streaming hair/rueful cries and bared breasts:/ Adonis, Adonis!//The night falls, by the light of their torches/They seek here and there in the wood/which, confused in fear, echoes/Weeping and laughter and sobbing and screaming:/ Adonis! Adonis!//The gorgeous young man/lies on the ground, pale and dead/The blood dyes all flowers red/And wailing fills the air: Adonis! Adonis!”). As we see, the poem offers a very impressionistic description of the ritual. We can’t call it a scene because time and place are not part of the equation here. First we witness the procession taking place – hundreds of women wailing, unruly hair, half-naked, uttering wild sounds, the name of Adonis being repeated over and over again. Then we see the procession disperse in the wood. It’s dark, we only see shadows and frightening sounds everywhere – we still hear “Adonis, Adonis” repeated in a hypnotic way, we’re reaching the point of ritual hallucination. And then, carried away by all those strong stimuli, we see what is not actually there: the death of Adonis, the blood. It’s just a fleeting impression, the rite is about to end.
Strauss did not choose any classic Lieder form to compose this song, but rather goes with the dramatic flow and descriptive needs of the text in almost “symphonic poem” style. The key word is “almost” – this is a very short piece and we have no time for true motivic development. So the composer works from two basic elements: in the vocal part we have a recurrent figure, which is the cry “Adonis, Adonis!”; in the orchestra we have a study in arpeggio. Not only they illustrate the whirlwind of impressions, but they also work as a quasi-motivic figure. There is also a short, sensuous twirling theme. It first appears on Die blühenden Mädchen in flutes, oboes, clarinets and violas. In a way, it is what comes closer to a Leitmotiv, since it does appear in fragmented form and in different harmonic contexts throughout the song. Chromaticism is used here generously, but not really boldly, almost as Mozart would use dissonance as colouring. The orchestra also echoes the vocal part to add flavor in the most declamatory passages.
The first stanza has the singer in full heroic mood – the soprano wrestles the orchestra on and around the passaggio before she is taken to a high b on die wi-i-lde Schar. For the nightly atmosphere of the second stanza, the entire sound picture is changed, first the tessitura is lower for both singer and orchestra, the arpeggi are now simpler too. The texture gradually becomes a little bit more complex and the singer is tested with a series of high a and finally a high b flat (a long one, in Schreien, “screaming”) Of course, Strauss creates an entirely new atmosphere for the vision of Adonis’s death.The arpeggi disappear and we have plain chords, there is an uncanny stillness now, the singer no long produces heroic notes, but rather a lyric flowing line. There is a famously difficult octave leap that requires a floated a sharp (on Wunderschöne, “gorgeous”). It takes a while before we’re suck back to reality, which manifests itself with the cries of Adonis. First we hear them still in the “insight” atmosphere before they’re repeated just like in the previous stanzas, if now taken to a long high b (followed by a b flat and an a)in an atmosphere close to the Immolation scene before it dies out in an orchestral upward sweep.
For the obvious reasons, there aren’t many recordings of Frühlingsfeier. It is curious, however, that dramatic sopranos aren’t usually tempted to sing it at all. It would have been interesting if we could have listened to Birgit Nilsson or Gwyneth Jones in it, for example. Strauss himself would have disagreed, it seems – he prepared the orchestral version for Viorica Ursuleac, who could rather fit into the big lyric drawer*. Luckily, she did record it with her husband, Clemens Krauss, and produces round, rich, high notes. It is indeed a very good recording that shows us what Strauss himself would expect to hear in it. Ursuleac premièred, among other Straussian roles, the part of Arabella – and I had to choose between two Arabellas before I finally picked the recording we’re hearing in the Music Lounge this week. Although I have her complete recording of Strauss orchestral songs, I had never noticed before this week that Felicity Lott actually recorded it. It is a light voice for this music and she has her fluttery moments. That said, she sounds younger than all her rivals and really makes more of the music and the text than everyone else. Neeme Järvi too offers an analytic account of the score and there is a lot to discover there. In the last minute, however, I chose Karita Mattila’s recording with the Berliner Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado.
Mattila’s CD with Richard Strauss’s orchestral songs was a bit of a disappointment when it was released, I’m afraid. Everybody had really high expectations about her Vier letzte Lieder, but the result is hardly groundbreaking. Abbado’s live recording with Melanie Diener in Salzburg proved to be surprisingly more effective in comparison. Yet the program has unusual items, and Mattila is at her best in them. The first thing we notice in Abbado’s recording is that he definitely listened to the Ursuleac/Krauss recording. It is dramatic, intense and orchestrally dense. He doesn’t make his soloist’s life easier in any moment. Mattila’s velvety, round voice lacked cutting edge in both ends and she always had to force her high notes a bit, which could acquire a matte finish. And yet she never lacked stamina. Here we feel that she goes dangerously close to her limits, but in a good way. This makes the whole experience particularly exciting. Also, there is a sexiness in her singing that adds an element of primal femininity that is in the very core of what is being described in Frühlingsfeier. To her credit, she offers the best rendition in the discography of the “vision” episode – it is at once sensuous, warm and classy. She floats the high a sharp better than anyone else (even Lott). And the closing bars are truly climactic – Mattila goes for the white-heat treatment in the difficult phrase with the high b, we can almost feel how much energy she used to keep that note in focus. And Abbado, well, he makes the Berliners go totally for broke there. The last orchestral swoosh is ecstatic, out of this world. Everybody knows that the most famous operatic urban myth is that there is a hidden studio recording of Elektra in Deutsche Gramophon’s vaults (with Jessye Norman and Helga Dernesch). Until we find if this is true or not, this account of Frühlingsfeier shows us what we’re missing. As a last note, Abbado did conduct Elektra live in Salzburg with Karita Mattila as Chrysothemis. At least one performance was recorded – and I sincerely hope it is going to be released some day.
* I am aware that some critics have described Viorica Ursuleac’s voice as a “dramatic soprano”. Indeed, she sang mezzo parts (Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, for instance) and even the title role in Turandot. It is said that her recordings invariably found her not in her best voice and do not show the impact of her gleaming and forceful high notes. Yet reading some contemporary reviews and listening to these recordings I still hear a big lyric voice – which is also the kind of singer we usually hear in the roles Strauss wrote for her voice. Everything about Ursuleac is controversial – even the fact that she was a good singer (and Strauss’s favourable opinion certainly is an evidence of that). I have the impression that those who are negative about her tend to form their opinions – as I myself have at first – on her recording of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer with Hans Hotter, in which, yes, she is not in top form at all.
I HEAR VOICES 
It’s a shame the four last songs are always the selling point of a recording, because they are quite disappointing and Mattila has never sounded great in them. Furthermore while they had a long lasting working relationship, Abbado’s approach really calls for a lighter of are at least less bulky sound that Mattila possesses. A pity since a love them both. It’s a bigger pity because the other songs find her in incredible voice and all play to her strengths to a much greater extent. If only they’d done some other songs to fill out the recording instead of the typical four last ones.
Ursuleac….hmmm I personally think she sounds pretty terrible on most of her recordings honestly. On some of them the sound is brighter and a bit meow vibrant and her temperament comes thru more strongly. But I don’t think any of her recordings amount to anything “well sung”. People complain of Maria Reining’s recorded Marschallin but Ursuleac’s truly is badly sung. The recorded I hold dear is the Arabella and that’s largely due to the in touch with with god conducting.
Hello, Peter! Yes, I had never thought about it the way you do, but you’re right. The 4LL never played to Mattila’s strengths. In the recording, she is fine. It’s just not compelling – it’s functional, but it lacks insight as a whole. Abbado sometimes tended to the “too objetive”, and, yes, maybe a more “poetic” soloist might have helped. But, yes, she delivers the good in the other songs, some of them rarely recorded. It would have been nice if they had chosen a “off the beaten track” program instead.
Ursuleac, yes, I don’t particularly like the sound, but I don’t think she’s either the as wonderful or as awful as she is alternately reputed to be. There’s far worse out there haha… In the Holländer, yes, she is truly very bad there. That said, the Frühlingsfeier with Krauss is probably the best thing I have ever heard with her. There are the occasional mannerisms, but the high notes are big, healthy and round. I actually find her good there. But, frankly, even with her shortcomings, I find Reining entirely in another level in terms of vocal beauty, musicianship, charm and expression. I even like that Marschallin haha
Oh like Reining’s Marschallin there as well. But I do fully understand why people have reservations. She must have been ill because there are live performances bookending that recording that while hardly the epitome of ease and markedly fresher sounding. She’s probably my *favorite* Marschallin.
Italian Rep aside, Mattila clearly must have known her voice to some extent because she has been really canny regarding what roles of certain composers did and didn’t work for her. Ostensibly her voice would suggest an ideal Strauss voice but other than the roles she did sing I can’t really picture her voice working in the other roles. I like that Abbado recording for all but those four songs.
I really like Reining – again despite the shortcomings – there is an inimitable spontaneity in her singing. The text comes across crispy, the voice has a smile and she makes everything sound singable (even when you see she’s beyond her limits – as in the Ariadne).
We have talked about Mattila here, but there’s always a bit more to discuss when we stop to think about her. It was an odd career, in a way. I have the impression that she is one of those singers whose facility played a bit against her – there are some small technical issues that could have been solved by thorougher schooling and, once solved, would have opened many possibilities for her. She did have unusual stamina – as I wrote – and she got away with forcing high notes in a way few singers could have managed. I also don’t understand exactly why there was so much Mozart in the beginning. Some Countesses and Donna Elviras were very accomplished (I like her in Mehta’s Florence Nozze, for instance), but those CDs with her singing Martern aller Arten… and I never felt that she had fun with her FIordiligis. To be honest, I don’t feel that she really had any fun in any of those Mozart parts. Then there were those “German soprano” Verdi roles (Desdemona, Amelia), which were predictable, but I don’t know why she went for the Puccini items. I can understand that she might have felt that the Marschallin was too much of a telefono bianco role, but I believe it would have suited her. Maybe Daphne too. As for Wagner, I guess that Elsa and Eva were the right choices for her. I would have to think about Elisabeth – it doesn’t seem like something for her. She waited too long for the Sieglinde – and I’m afraid that the Isolde thing wouldn’t work out at all.
Well for one thing Mattila was one of those singers who won an award before her career even got started so she was getting all these prominent engagements from the beginning. She says she was offered things like Senta and Aida after Cardiff and didn’t think she was up to them. The first decade of her career she sang almost nothing but Mozart and was pretty hit and miss. It’s clear she didn’t really have a great deal of consistency and control over her voice specifically then and she did go back to do some heavy duty retooling in the late 1980s. She’s also admitted to having a bit of an emotional crisis stemming from being thrust into the limelight so soon after having grown up on a farm in Finland. She said at one point she wasn’t even sure she even liked singing. It’s pretty clear beginning the 1990s she found her footing she pretty much decided she was going to sing roles she’s actually wanted to sing and this seems to have entailed characters who weren’t passive. I recall and interview she gave around the time she sang her lone concert Desdemona that most Verdi and Wagner heroines didn’t appeal to her and she also expressed an ambivalence to Strauss.. Again whose to say she could have actually been successful in these roles, but it’s apparent Janacek was one composer to she loved totally and from a purely vocal point of view his work has really been the music that has suited the specific strengths of her voice with minimal effort and strain. She has continued to sound most vocally at her best in those roles even now. She said Ariadne bored her and Sieglinde was too low for her. That might be true but given the singers who have sung the role I’d wager she just wasn’t interested. I don’t think the prayer in Tannhauser would have worked for her at all. She did look at Forza and Trovatore and then decided against both. Weirdly the composer who also seemed to suit her while defeating so many was Beethoven. She easily got thru Fidelio as well as anyone I’ve heard in person without having a heart attack. I’ve never heard an Isolde in her voice.
It’s also worth pointing that the opera business had changed. Though they are very different she and Fleming both specifically established themselves by actively not specializing and making their own personalities and specific artistries define them as opposed to what exactly they were singing. That’s a simplistic way of putting it but singers do really need a hook these days.
The jury is still out for me and it will always be. She had a uniquely beautiful voice and whatever niceties were absent there was always something personal and viscerally exciting in the sound itself that I’ve rarely ever minded. But I’ve never figured out of her technique just never was what it could have been or if there were just flaws her voice she couldn’t get around. The way her voice opens up and needs to he let loose to make it’s impact seems to suggest a spinal of sorts. Yet she was so obviously at her limits up top in most things. Was that a short top or a poor technique? Honestly I’ve no clue. Because the sound and configuration would suggest an ideal Senta or Katarina. Is all confusing.
Yes, I forget about her winning the competition. I remember one interview of hers about the way her life changed and her having to be this continental Kunstdiva etc etc. I guess it is difficult for a singer when he or she decides she wants to manage his or her career the way a pop singer or an actor does. Like “now I’ll record a folk album and then a jazz album”. That simply doesn’t happen – the repertoire is the repertoire and, when you decide that you have to identify yourself with Desdemona or Ariadne to find the experience rewarding, then this is going to be some kind of puzzle. I mean, it is easier when you say “I find the music in Lohengrin beautiful, so I want to sing it” rather than going through the whole Elsa agenda. All that said, I think Mattila made the best of it – she’s well loved by the audience because of her personality, she conveys that in her singing and, when she dropped Mozart, I guess she mostly had fun. My experience of seeing her live was that she seemed to be enjoying herself – even if the roles I saw her sing weren’t really a good fit for her voice.
You’ll probably say that I say that often, but I don’t think she had a short top – from what I hear and what I see she had the wrong method, but she made do with it. In the end of the day what matters if the singers pulls it off without damaging his or her voice. Nobody sings his or her whole potential before an audience. At home, even Sutherland was more impressive. So, we’re always missing something – and what matters is what you finally deliver in an actual performance. In other words, I guess we agree haha
It’s just frustrating because there are so many roles she COULD have feasibly done but her vocal limitations probably prevented. I mean the sound of her voice would have been ideal for most Wagner roles and all the notes were there ostensibly. Lady of the M District etc… but the unruliness just wasn’t something she managed to overcome. I mean I think she’s had a phenomenal career and made an impact, certainly from about 1995 to the late 2000s. But it is interesting how comparatively small her actual operatic rep has been and how when looking back at what she could have sung how clear what the issues would have been. So you could either argue she chose well or crested early without reaching her full potential. I tend to go with the former but it’s hard thinking of roles I always wanted her to do.
I guess, in the end, she chose what was best for her – and right she was. Living up to one’s 100% as a singer has a high price in terms of personal life, energy etc. If she found a compromise in which she could deliver something she was comfortable to deliver and that was good enough for us to be here talking about in an appreciative manner, she can definitely pat herself on her own back. Of course, on our side, we are entitled to wonder “what if she had sung this or that…”, but that’s part of the experience of opera. I have a long list of imaginary opera recordings – as much as everybody else, I guess 🙂
Well the biggest what the hell for me is that they DIDN’T film the Queen of Spades she did with Rysanek and Heppner. In general they’re not filming Rysanek when was around is a major loss and she, Mattila, and Heppner were an incendiary trio. Plus it was Rysanek’s farwell, although that meant filming the second cast she sang with most likely. Anyway the 1999 telecast with Domingo and a miscast Soderstrom was a poor choice.
I also hope the 2004 Salome gets released from the vaults someday.
Yes, that’s sad. Is there an audio like the Onegin? I saw her in it (and thought that the whole cast but for Hampson was superior to the one released on video). That was the best performance I saw with Mattila. She was in excellent voice and made a more complex Tatiana than one usually sees.
I remember having read that the Salome would be released but then for some reason the idea was abandoned.
Nope, there isn’t a broadcast that I know of. The performance that I *think* was broadcast (have to look at the archives) of that run was later, after Mattila and Heppner had departed. I remember being underwhelmed by her Tatiana, but I also remember very little about that performance. It’s another role I wish she’d done more frequently because that’s a role like Elsa that probably was as close to ideal for her vocally as possible.
Tatiana is a difficult role – and singers tend to – understandably- exaggerate the initial timidity and the final flashiness, what makes everything a bit unconvincing. With Mattila, I remember the character more consistent. She was shy at first, but not gawky. She behaved like an intelligent person. And in the end she was dignified without being overgrand. And the voice had a lovely, warm float. I really liked her there.
And I’ve heard very different reasons why the Salome never saw the light of day. Volpe doesn’t address why it was never broadcast but he writes in his memoir that Mattila was happy with the results. I’ve also heard Gelb doesn’t want it around because he wants the Salome filmed under his tenure to be the primary one released. But I’ve also heard Mattila actually doesn’t love the production and didn’t want it released at the time. That sounds hard to credit honestly because she has talked about loving that director and production publicly many times.